A Day of Grace

I was in Virginia a long time. Not a life time, but quite a while. I went to seminary there in 1966 and left for Vermont in 1993. Because I was on the radio from the first months I arrived in Richmond and until a month after  I’d left, I’m sure some folks thought I’d been a Virginian from birth. And with the Kellam name (prominent or notorious, depending on your political views) more common there than in my NY hometown, it didn’t come as a great surprise when someone called me at my church office in late summer, 1992, to ask if I would accept a challenging assignment. Would I be willing to be a “Virginia Hero”?

Pardon?

The caller explained that this organization called “Virginia Heroes” was putting together a day-long event in the Richmond Convention Center, a huge gathering of middle school children from the Richmond Public Schools who would have opportunities to hear from a number of Virginia natives who had become successful in various fields. The point, the caller said, was to show the school children that they didn’t need to become pop stars or athletes in order to be successful. Local heroes, products of Virginia education (like them), had made great strides in many vocations that were making a difference: artists, business executives, teachers, scientists, even media people (like me).

The format was a plenary session to start the day, with the kids then moving in small groups from one table to another to meet with the “heroes.” Some well-known Virginians would be coming from out of town, while others of us would simply drive downtown to the Virginia Heroes reception the night before, and then return for the next day’s activities.

I was being asked to participate because of “Celebration Rock,” but the man issuing the invitation said some of the kids would be interested in my work as a minister too. I was especially intrigued when I heard that the honorary co-chairs of this event were the legendary tennis great Arthur Ashe and L. Douglas Wilder, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. I wanted to accept the invitation, but there was a little problem. I wasn’t a native Virginian.

“Oh. Well, how long have you been here?” the caller asked.

“Since 1966.” That was good enough, I was told. so I was “in.”

“A Celebration of Virginia Heroes” began on the evening of November 16, 1992. It was a gala affair, as least as far as I was concerned. I was honored to be among so many Virginians whose achievements ranged from being television personalities to jewelry designers, from teachers to legislators. And then Arthur Ashe came up to me and introduced himself. He glanced at my name tag and asked what I would be talking about with the children I’d meet with the next day. I told him I was a rock (and jazz) deejay, and a Presbyterian minister. He smiled and noted what an unusual combination that was, and said he knew that would go over well with the kids I’d be with in the morning.

I confessed some nervousness about the next day. I told Arthur Ashe that I was unsure how well I could relate with those city middle-schoolers. (See my blog from May 21.) Ashe was reassuring, of course. “I’m sure you’ll do well,” he said as he moved to another guest.

Wilder and Ashe were inspiring in their keynote comments the next day, with the Convention Center floor filled with hero/mentors and middle school proteges. As I remember, I think there must have been ten or twelve kids in each group, spending maybe 20 minutes with one Virginia Hero hosting the table (and probably a local teacher moving from table to table with the kids). It seems to me that we may have hosted four different groups. I don’t remember whether the assignments were random, or whether the kids chose particular subjects they were interested in (art, music, politics, etc.). Predictably, the children I met with were most interested in radio, even after I explained that my program was a “religious” rock show. I knew that kids that age weren’t going to know “Celebration Rock,” but they were still interested in what I could tell them about radio as a career. Some did ask about what ministers “do,” and it was overall an enjoyable  and I hope profitable event.

But the highlight for me took place during the morning break when Arthur Ashe sought me out. No kidding. He wanted to know how things were going for me with the kids who came to my table. “From what you said last night, I know you had some misgivings,” he said. I assured him that I was having a great time, and he said he wasn’t at all surprised. I was impressed with how sincere he was, how pastoral. And I went into the next session quite enthused about my role as a “hero.”

Shortly after Joan and I had moved to Vermont in February 1993,  Arthur Ashe died of complications from AIDS. Later that year I read his autobiography Days of Grace.  Just before the Table of Contents was this quotation from Hebrews 12:1. “…Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…”

My brief meeting with Arthur Ashe provided me with a day of grace that I will always remember.

Dimensions of Friendship

Matt Matthews is the only person to have written more than one “Celebration Rock” script for me. Mostly I did my own writing each week. Some friends submitted single scripts, only one of which actually aired, I think.  But Matt wrote two shows that aired: one based on Dan Fogelberg’s “High Country Snows” album and one on James Taylor’s “That’s Why I’m Here.” I still have copies and they still both sound like I wrote them. That’s how close Matt and I were back then.

Actually, he should  have been a decent writer; he was a journalism major.  One of my earliest memories of Matt was a meeting at a burger place on Richmond’s Boulevard. He’d been raised in a Presbyterian church, was very active there, and if journalism didn’t work out for him, I figured from that early conversation that ministry would be a good direction for him. One way or another, that’s what happened.

I don’t recall how long he’d been listening to “Celebration Rock” before we met, but I think it was the program based on the Jimmy Buffett song “It’s My Job” that first prompted a letter to me, and then that lunch at a rightly-now-defunct fast food trench. That meal began a friendship that continues today(though at a distance), a friendship with many dimensions.

On one level, Matt and I had several common interests: faith and church, media and message, Virginia and Richmond. We enjoyed further conversations, and did the things good friends do: went to movies, backpacked, shared music, and talked about families, and faith. (It was on the backpacking trip along a section of the Appalachian Trail that I realized profoundly the difference in our ages…he had 20 years less mileage on his legs, though at least I knew what kind of hiking boots to wear.)

So friendship is having things in common and knowing that, as JT sings, “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” Together. Another dimension of this particular friendship was the development of a mentor-protege relationship. I smile at that because while it was true that I did guide Matt into some radio experiences, and he did decide to enter seminary, I forced Matt into the protege role for a video I was producing, a program on the value of mentoring. I had a solid example for the video, an A&P butcher who was truly mentoring a young man who had recently been released from jail. The interviews with both men were touching and to the point. But it was only one story, and I needed at least one more. A colleague suggested Matt and me. Very awkward, this idea of putting on the mentor’s mantle and asking a friend to talk to the camera about being your protege. Awkward indeed. But I was desperate. And as long as viewers didn’t see the connection between me the mentor and me in the video credits, I guess it was OK. It was odd, but honest.

One project I enjoyed far more was helping Matt produce a video for a Presbytery committee that would shepherd him through his journey to ministry. Matt told his story, using “Cool Change” by the Little River Band to express his love for the waters of both sea and baptism.

If there’s one thing in my life that’s missing
It’s the time I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
There’s lots of those friendly people
Showin me ways to go
And I never want to lose your inspiration…

I loved the video we made; the Presbytery committee was less enthused. They liked things written on paper, typed neatly. In today’s post-modern world, that video would have wowed ’em. But it was many moons ago.

Matt’s interest in media took hold in seminary where he pushed the Media Services Department to be more creative than the school’s administration knew was possible. He used slides and music in those pre-PowerPoint days. And he took a directed study under me at the PSCE (Presbyterian School of Christian Education) Video Education Center. His project centered on the growing number of clergy couples in ministry together, and if a copy still exists, it’s a valuable piece of oral history to be sure.

I assume that Matt’s interest in radio was inspired in part by his interest in “Celebration Rock.” He listened, and he critiqued, gently and on target. Not only did he help me celebrate the 20th anniversary of the show with a scrapbook of letters and notes of congratulations from colleagues near and far, but, more ambitiously he took over WBBL’s “Alternatives” program on Sunday nights. He interviewed guests, chose the music, handled phone calls, and kept WBBL’s radio ministry honest.

Oh, and there’s one more dimension of friendship I have to note here, something that had little to do with media, backpacking, or mentor-protege stuff. For the only time in my life, I served as a Best Man at a wedding. I’d officiated at countless ceremonies and served once as a very proud Father of the Bride. But the only time anyone was foolish enough to trust me to be best man was at Matt’s wedding to Rachel. Two things I remember about that: we hid his car, and not very successfully; and Matt was so choked up as he stood there with his bride that he couldn’t say his vows loud enough to be picked up by the nearby tape recorder. But as Best Man, I hereby certify that he did say his vows, and the Rev. and Rev. Matthews have a family of three baptized boys.

Matt’s media ministry today is more linear than radio or slide show soundtracks. He’s a writer of solid stories, a preacher of well-crafted sermons and meditations, and a singer-songwriter whose music would make for a great “Celebration Rock” show, if it were still around. He’s a husband, a dad, and a good friend to many. A good friend especially to me.

Billie’s Gift

 Through the long run of “Celebration Rock,” I don’t think that anyone was a more active supporter of the program than Billie Starr Brightwell. I don’t remember if she had been a listener before arriving at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education to earn a second Master’s degree. But once she arrived there, she became what you might call a “fan.”

After graduation from PSCE, she became a Church Educator in Kentucky, and then returned to Richmond to be closer to her aging mother. I welcomed her as she came on staff at PSCE to be my way over-qualified Administrative Assistant in the Video Education Center. Because PSCE had encouraged me to tape “Celebration Rock” in their new audio studio, Billie was often nearby as I worked on the show. She had the uncanny ability to understand when I had to be left alone to listen to music and then write my commentaries on lyrics, while at the same time knowing when it was OK to invade my space with “Good and Plenty” candy. Hers was a ministry of presence, to be sure, and she certainly played the role of pastor as I encountered technical and (ahem) artistic aggravations along the way. She knew when to offer advice, and she knew when to let me stew. And she listened to CR just about every Sunday to hear how it all came out.

I used to say (in church work) that the deeper we get inside of something, the more it reeks. Billie was further inside the “Celebration Rock” process than anyone else, but she must have held her breath for long periods of time, because she never complained (that I know of) about my unpleasantness when I mis-cued records, repeatedly stumbled over script, or (shudder) forgot to push “record” and found my masterpiece wasn’t laid down on tape. For all the “be gentle with people and with yourself” advice I gave, I hereby confess that there were rare occasions when I couldn’t help but angrily fling a tape reel across the studio, utter a naughty word (I know several), stomp out of the studio for a Coke (not a product placement), or pound the desk in frustration. Billie heard it all, was quick to understand and forgive, and remains a very close friend.

Billie eventually became the Assistant Director of the Video Education Center, having not only taken my video course as a PSCE student, but later learning by doing, a PSCE trademark. (I fondly recall a phrase she used when video equipment didn’t function according to her will: “I can’t make this do !”) After I left radio and PSCE for my pastoral ministry in Vermont, Billie became the Center’s Director, then left PSCE for seminary, and is now a gifted pastor in Maryland.  

Billie was good at choosing various gifts and cards through our years together. She had a knack for finding birthday and friendship cards that said exactly  the right thing. She also knew that by giving me an annual season ticket to the AAA Richmond Braves for Christmas (section 113, Seat A-1) , she was ensuring her job security. A wise woman. But another gift was even more important: she compiled a book of “Celebration Rock” quotations, words she had transcribed from her copious selection of CR tapes. She called the book “Words on Words” (meaning my comments on lyrics), and gave it to me for my 44th birthday. In the book were 52 meditations culled from CR shows, each titled with one word that described the selection.

Among the words: agape, baptism, blues, goodbye, mercy, ocean, prayer, reason, redemption, silence, time, and wonder. Billie’s gift proved to be very helpful when I was feeling less than inspired some weeks. I might be ready to tape the WRVA”Sunday Morning” program, but without a clue as to content. And there was Billie’s book of my own quotations! I’d thumb through it, see the word “solitude,” and find a song to go with that excerpt. I’ve never been above plagiarizing my own work in a pinch.

So, thanks, Billie, for your collegiality, and love. It helped keep “Celebration Rock” going, and it reminded me of the value of faithful friendship.

Next, some writing about a writer named Matt.

Petra/Meditations

One of the “Celebration Rock” programs that featured contemporary Christian music used the songs of Petra, a band started by Bob Hartman in the early 1970’s. Until someone mentioned the band at dinner the other night, I had forgotten about that CR show. Curious, I looked for and found excerpts from the script (yes, hand-written on yellow legal pad). While the program itself has disappeared, I can guess at the flow from the top of the hour.

I probably started with some big hit record to draw the listeners into the body of the program. I was using Bill Huie’s five minute feature “What’s It All About?” right after the opening song in those days. He almost always had a big name interview that held the audience, and then I could glide into the intro to that week’s CR theme. The first Petra cut was “The Coloring Song.” I called it an affirmation of faith.

Brown is the color of the autumn leaves
When the winter comes to the barren trees
There is birth, there is death, there is a plan
And there’s just one God, and there’s just one man
That can give us life, that can make us grow
That can make our sins as white as snow

 The script: The next song is based on colors too, yet it’s more about how we, like the chameleon, change colors to fit our surroundings…Bob Hartman of Petra is concerned with how the faith we profess is put on and taken off depending on our environment. For many of us, our faith is strong on Sunday morning, but nowhere to be found on Friday night. [Here I played the song “Chameleon.”]

Reflecting on the lyric: You want the best of both worlds, but you’re not getting either. Luke warm, bland, gray, neutral– all words Petra sings to describe folk who are afraid to take a stand and live by it. While the apostle Paul wanted to be all things to all  people, he didn’t compromise his beliefs to accomplish that. As we move among the lives of friends and strangers, all should know who we are, and whose we are. We just can’t hide the light any longer. People need us to be God’s. [Under that remark came the instrumental opening to Jackson Browne’s “On the Boulevard,” and then the cut played to the end.]

My comment followed: God help the children of the Boulevard. Their hearts are hard and the times are tough. You’ve got to be on guard on the Boulevard. Jackson Browne describes the city street scene and its victims. Now the Christian rock group Petra describes the pain and passion of people led astray, putting the blame on the “Angel of Light,” a personification of evil, which brings darkness to the soul. [Obviously “Angel of Light” followed…]

The problem with blaming evil on an “angel of light,” or darkness, or Satan, is that we can escape responsibility for making wrong-headed decisions, or exploiting the failures of other people. “The devil made me do it! It’s not my fault.”  I hear Petra trying to remind us in the last couple of lines that the devil is real. They sing to the “angel”: “Somehow you’ve got so many thinking you’re not even there. One look is all it takes to get them blinded by your glare.”  I’m not convinced. I don’t need to see an angel or a devil lurking behind every sin I commit to know that evil is a real force the Christian must contend with. Evil is the absence of good, and separation from God’s loving purpose for our lives.

What’s of prime importance is that light, God’s Light, overcomes darkness, life conquers death, and God’s forgiveness wipes away the sins we commit, as soon as we admit them and turn ourselves around. To continue the imagery of dark streets and wayward people, here’s Gino Vanelli, and the title cut from his album “Nightwalker.”

Other cuts I played included “Without Him We Can Do Nothing,” “That Which I Have Lost,” “Never Say Die,” and “It’s Too Late for Annie.” The script I have left only goes to page four, and concludes: Annie needs to know that our love, our embrace, our understanding and caring are a dim reflection of how much God loves her. She may not understand the Jesus kind of love until she feels our human touch.

Same goes for all of us, of course. Angels of Light and Darkness notwithstanding.

An E-Journal about “Celebration Rock”

[Lost somewhere in the re-formatting of this weblog is the page entitled “About.” Since the information on that page is helpful in understanding what this effort, this memoir, is “about,” I’m restoring the content in this space.]

Celebration Rock, the radio program (not a “show” but a program, I was reminded by a helpful print editor), was a month-long experiment in broadcasting which ran for 22 years.  It was the main focus of my creative energy, my vocation, through that period, and while I applied myself to a myriad of other efforts, that radio series profoundly shaped my life and ministry. I’m Jeff Kellam, more formally Jeffrey Stanton Kellam, married since 1967 to Joan, father of Wendy and Jim, grandfather of Ryan and Tyler, and son of Harry and Beverly Kellam, an Endicott, NY, couple who brought five more children into the world after me.

While there are many things that help describe who I am, foremost today is the fact that I am a child of the Union Presbyterian Church in Endicott. My parents were married there, and I was baptized, confirmed, and ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament there. Even my college choice was influenced by the pastor of that congregation, and besides an education, I met Joan there at Westminster, and majored in her.

It was in that Presbyterian college that I first went “on the air” (not quite accurate: the station’s signal was transmitted through the wiring in some dorms). But from that small studio, its odd collection of 45’s and LP’s, and the combination of reading news, keeping logs, and playing the DJ role, I saw a way to channel my ninth grade “call” to ministry (yes, that early) into a medium that reached way beyond church walls.

 I chose a Presbyterian seminary not for its theology, its faculty, or its location, but because it owned and operated an FM radio station. 16,000 watts, 106.5 mHz, classical music and recorded theological lectures and sermons…and eventually, a charter member of National Public Radio. Midway through my seminary career, I was asked to create a program for youth on the city’s leading rock station. That was the experiment that lasted 22 years: “Celebration Rock.”

That Sunday night hour wasn’t very good at first. But it was so different, people thought it was good. Sometimes, over the years, the programs were very good. Often they were not. But that ministry opened the doors to other broadcast efforts, to teaching, to “pastoring,” and to encouraging anyone who would listen to be gentle with people, and with themselves.

My retirement from active ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA now opens the door to some new things, including this blog. Stay tuned.

CCM on CR, Redux

In past posts, I’ve come down pretty hard on “contemporary Christian music,” noting several times that my program “Celebration Rock” featured hits and albums cuts by so-called “secular” artists. Still, I have noted earlier that on occasion I did devote some programs to Christian musicians who used contemporary music to express their faith. In the first years that “Celebration Rock” was broadcast (beginning in 1968), I suppose one might say that the program was a pioneer in airing new religious music that found few other broadcast venues.

At that time, there were few, if any, radio stations devoted to contemporary  Christian music. In fact, most religious stations shied away from that genre, afraid that their listeners and sponsors might be offended by music that didn’t sound “churchy” enough. That would result in a loss of revenue. Though many Pentecostal churches had embraced the sound of electric guitars, drums, and jazz-blues piano, and worship in African-American churches swung to gospel/blues/spirituals, the radio dial was still filled with church organs, choirs, and gospel singers more in the tradition of George Beverly Shea.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, I wanted to supplement the hit rock music that was the foundation of my youth-oriented show with some specifically Christian musical content. Most of the “product” available then was distributed by small independent record companies or by church publishing houses. And there were Christian artists who funded their own projects or who found a sponsor to pay the production bills.

I’ve mentioned previously here my earliest discoveries: music from jazz, folk, and bossa nova masses (that is, music created for worship but suitable for “contemporary” airplay); Christian artists influenced by the hit music of their generation; and new compositions created especially for personal devotional listening at home. An example of the latter might be music by Ralph Carmichael, a big band arranger who created some light vocal and orchestral Christian songs that adults could call contemporary but teens of the era would consider dated or “square.”

Among the early Christian artists whose music came my way was Ray Hildebrand. In 1963, he and Jill Jackson (as Paul and Paula) had a big hit called “Hey, Paula.” A somewhat lesser hit followed (“Young Lovers”), but Hildebrand left the duo to record Christian songs under his own name. I remember playing two or three Hildebrand songs that were hardly considered “rock” but that nonetheless sounded fine when mixed with some of the softer hits of the time. As I remember, his songs were not particularly Jesus-oriented, but certainly espoused the major themes of the Christian faith and devotional life, including some pointed references to brotherhood and race relations, and what might be considered musical parables as opposed to preaching.

I may be repeating myself here (I’ve been writing this over a period of five months and haven’t tracked carefully every reference), but in this context I want to point to the early efforts of Larry Norman, The Talbot Brothers (John Michael and Terry), Keith Green, and “mainline church” musicians like Ray Repp and  Jim Strathdee. (Turns out that Ray Repp once lived in the neighborhood of the church I served in Trumansburg, NY. He wrote and published many contemporary hymns there, music that is still loved by that congregation. Oh, and Trumansburg was also the home of Robert Moog and his synthesizer. But I digress…again.)

In the mid-years of “Celebration Rock,” I played Debby Boone, Kerry Livgren, and Amy Grant. There were two Virginia-based groups I remember playing on CR. One was a local band that hardly ventured further than their Richmond home, but they rocked, calling themselves “Sons of Thunder,” a great name. The other band was far better known: “Glad.” Among the harder rockers of the time was “The Resurrection Band,” which later became known as the Rez Band. (Was the “r” word too hard to spell?)

When CR was in its strongest years, the genre called “Contemporary Christian Music” [CCM] gave birth to decently-selling labels such as “Sparrow,” as well as its own industry print piece, “CCM,” which reported on sales, promoted the genre, and kept us up with the stories of Christian artists. During these years, I was able to retire from my record library what had been  considered “contemporary” music, but which was nowhere close to the sound that rock stations were programming. While I still mined the best-selling albums and hits of the day for the majority of “Celebration Rock” shows, I also had a greater wealth of pointedly Christian songs from which to choose, music now recorded to the highest technical standards and in line with the mainline theology of my program.

(At one time, early on in the development of CCM, I dismissed much of what I heard in that genre, claiming that many of the so-called Christian artists couldn’t “make it” in the secular world of rock, so they had to make a name for themselves playing Jesus music in church basements. I am no longer that cynical, thank God. For one thing, I have come to respect the honest efforts of gifted musicians who have grown up in the rock culture, and let the Spirit speak through the only music they have known.)

Now for the primary reason for writing what may have been a rehash of previous comments. I was at dinner the other night with 13 others around the table, people who had never heard of “Celebration Rock,’ but who knew I had done some kind of contemporary Christian radio show. A young woman at the table said she really enjoyed CCM. “Did you play that on your radio show?” I told her I didn’t care much for it. It turned out that no one else at the table did either. She was surprised, and said she especially liked the group known as Petra. No one else had heard of Petra. Except me. I had forgotten until that moment that I had featured the group on “Celebration Rock.” When I got home I even found a few pages of the script.

One reason I had forgotten the Petra show is that the tape is long gone. In fact, while I still have a huge library of music left over from those days, that album is missing. But I must have thought enough of it to have devoted an hour to Petra’s music, adding cuts by Jackson Brown, George Harrison, and Gino Vanelli, among others. Having dismissed CCM that night at dinner, I’ll have to send a note to the young woman and let her know she isn’t as alone as she thought. I’ll also confess to her that CCM is a major player in music sales these days, with the genre easily outselling classical and jazz, the two kinds of music I listen to most in my car and at home.

Finally, here’s a bit of irony. “Celebration Rock” lives! Except today it features nothing but “Contemporary Christian Music.” And the show is called the “Celebration Rock Cafe.” It’s on a Binghamton, NY FM rock station. It is not at all connected with my program. I tuned in once, but discovered that I’m really not that contemporary!

In my next post, I’ll share a brief section of the old Petra script, one that deals with “The Angel of Light”… probably not who you think it is.

When “Celebration Rock” Wasn’t Christian Enough

Since moving to upstate New York several years ago, a number of friends, including members of my church(es), have encouraged me to listen to their favorite “Christian” radio stations. Those folks know of my radio ministry background, and assume that I would be a big fan of their “lite rock” Christian radio format. Sometimes I tell my closer friends that I am not that  Christian. Then, of course, I have to explain that I’ve never actually listened to Christian radio, no matter the format. My soul isn’t fed by religious programming 24/7, or even 1/1.

When it comes to radio preachers, I haven’t heard one I’ve liked since Edmund Steimle on the Lutheran Hour. That was back in the late 60’s, early 70’s. The current series called “Day One,” (formerly known as the “Protestant Hour”) does include some fine contemporary “preachers,” and I can take a half-hour of that once a week. But listen every day to one Bible teacher/preacher/Jesus song after another on a “Christian” station? Not for me. I find my Christian nurture person-to-person, in small groups, or in personal reading and in what some call “devotional time.”  I hasten to add that I am not passing judgment on those who do listen to religious broadcasters hour after hour; it just isn’t my thing. And never was. Keep in mind that my “Celebration Rock” program was mostly secular hit music with my Christian theological commentary woven into the hour. For some reason, I was more into Billy Joel and Chicago than into the Gaithers and Stryper.

My born again cousin John had two Christian stations on 24/7 in his home. We visited John and his wife one evening, and one radio was sending Jesus music into one end of the house, and another station carried a preacher’s voice to the other end. We sat in the middle of the house and talked, with the conversation rarely straying from the things of God. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… But even as one who had commited my life to the ministry of Christ, I don’t think I was Christian enough for my cousin.

I remember getting a phone call from the program director of one of the stations that carried “Celebration Rock,” a West Virginia FM. He called to tell me how much he appreciated my show personally, and that he knew a lot of his listeners liked it, too. But he had to drop it from his station’s schedule. Seems the station had switched formats, from “adult contemporary” to “Christian.” And as much as he liked what I was trying to do with CR, it wasn’t “Christian enough” for the new format. He even acknowledged that he had gotten some complaints from some listeners. I was surprised by that and asked what the problem was. As I suspected, some of the issues I touched on, or some of the topics my guest interviews had brought up, had ruffled some conservative Christian feathers. “Plus,” the p.d. said, “your program seems to endorse drinking.”

Say what? I was beginning to think he had me confused with someone else. “I don’t ‘drink’,” I assured him. “It’s unlikely that my program would come across promoting alcohol abuse. Where did that come from?” He did have a specific instance in mind, when one of my “meditations” went something like, “Does anyone really love me, Lord? I know some people like me, talk with me, play ball with me, drink with me…but does anyone really love me?” That was it?  The main thing, of course, was that the program’s format just didn’t fit the station’s format anymore. If the station were selling time to the local Gospel Tabernacle, Jimmy Swaggart, and Pastor Tim’s 15 minute “‘Hour’ of Healing,” obviously my hour-long John Prine special wasn’t a good match. I agreed with the p.d., thanked him for carrying “Celebration Rock” for two or three years, and wished him well with the new format.

Two more comments are apropos here. One is something I heard a friend say several years ago regarding “Christian” radio stations. Radio stations aren’t Christian; people are. I readily acknowledge that there is a place for full-time Christian witness over the air. But I also am suspicious of the intentions of some radio or TV management. I once did some church-produced (and I swear, “Christian”) public affairs programming at a local Richmond day-timer. It’s gone now, so I can mention it by name: WRGM. When I was first associated with the station, their music format was middle-of-the-road. Then, after months of neglect, the station pretty much played any demo record that came in the mail. Then WRGM went JAZZ! Much fanfare, a format I loved personally, but a minuscule audience. So a new management team came in and announced that the station would be “Solid Gold Rock and Roll.”

Here’s the kicker: the new general manager said to me in the station lobby, “If this new format doesn’t work, we can always ‘go religion.'” Pardon? “Well, it sells itself to a loyal niche. Churches and religious producers line up to buy airtime, and we can reduce the sales and on-air staff, and just cue up tapes all day. But let’s try to rock and roll first!” For this guy, and for many in the industry, a “Christian” format held no more sincere religious commitment and devotion than if the station switched to an “all polka, all the time” format.

Still, I remember a nice guy who was one of the original deejays at Richmond’s WRVQ (Q94) when it debuted. A strong evangelical Christian, he wrestled with the kind of songs he had to play hour after hour at Q94. He eventually left the air staff and went into sales, but even then, being a part of the rock culture made him increasingly uncomfortable. His dream was to found a Christian TV station to serve Central Virginia. He and I talked about that dream many times. He was enthusiastic, but I knew the station schedule would be filled with what I considered questionable theology. (Sorry that sounds judgmental, but I’m confident the fundamentalist folk would question my  theology too!)

Jim Campana did get his station started, on cable at first, and then finally a UHF broadcast station. He worked very hard to find the funding, of course, but he did it out of an honest commitment to spread the gospel, to promote family values, and to provide an alternative outlet for entertainment and inspiration. Sadly, Jim died at a very young age. But he achieved his dream. Praise the Lord for that!

As Sly Stone once said, “Different strokes for different folks.” And as the Apostle Paul wrote, “There are varieties of gifts…” But I still don’t listen to Christian radio.

Do You Think I Could Do a Radio Show with You?

Dear Mr. Kellam,

Do you think I could do a radio show with you? I am 13 years old. You don’t have to pay me anything. I’ve had experience in a way. I have a walkie-talkie and I turn it on, use my transistor radio and a portable tape recorder, if you can call that experience, but I do it every Saturday. Please consider it seriously.

Jack __________

A frequent listener

P.S. PLEASE

The letter came from Richmond’s West End. It was not the only time Jack wrote, but it was the first. The letter is not dated, but I suspect it was in 1969 or so, while “Showcase” was still on the air. When the program morphed into “Celebration Rock,” Jack wrote again several times, as an adult. He wasn’t asking to do the show, but was commenting on how it sounded, what it said to him, and what he was thinking about his own life.

Though I never did meet young Jack, there were others who wrote or called, youth with whom I shared the studio or other media work. One teen-aged writer, who will recognize himself as he reads this decades later, was introduced to me in the building that housed the seminary FM station. He was going to run the board there for a time, before finishing high school, and then studying broadcasting at UNC, getting his MBA at UVA, and eventually finding a distinguished career as a broadcast consultant and station owner. He’ll question the “distinguished” part, but I truly believe his work in that field kept the term “distinguished broadcaster” from being oxymoronic. We remain close today.

Another youth called my wife at home one day. He asked if the phone number was that of the Jeff Kellam on the radio. Yes, it is. “Really? Wow, he’s easy to reach! Most of the radio deejays have unlisted numbers!” As a result of that call, I got an unlisted number. I might have been the only Presbyterian minister who had one! That caller phoned a bit too frequently, but we eventually met and he became a volunteer with our live Sunday night call-in show on the old WBBL. He didn’t do radio professionally as an adult, but he followed the business closely, marking the comings and goings of air talent, calling the stations to critique programming changes, and lamenting the decline of local radio.

Another teenager called me in my studio one summer morning, not because of any interest in radio, but because someone had told him that I might be able to help him make a movie. “A movie?” “Yes, I’m writing a script and the minister at the Presbyterian church said you might be able to help me.”

“Well, I do video, not film.”

This was in the early days of portable VHS equipment; not camcorders, but a good-sized TV camera slung over one shoulder and the portable VCR hanging on the other one. Hal agreed that video would do, and over the next several weeks, he and I and some of his high school friends produced Hal’s script, entitled “Pretense.” A second production followed, with the first a vignette about high school life and the second more of a sci-fi theme. Both enabled a creative teenager to dabble in video expression while his imagination helped him play the role of hero. He became a teacher.

[This e-journal has gone on so long that I can’t remember if this next story is a rerun. Just in case…] A few years later, I was teaching video at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education and the wife of one of our faculty members was a teacher at a local high school. Knowing I had some experience working with youth and that I had a studio filled with fabulous prizes (i.e.,U-Matic video editing equipment), she asked me if I would help one of her students edit a video project. I really didn’t need another thing to tick off my to-do list, but once I saw the teenager’s raw video, I agreed to teach him the basics of editing videotape, the “basics” being just about all I knew. We had to convert his VHS format up to 3/4 inch U-Matic, edit electronically, and dub in music and closing credits. It might have been easier if he had come to me before shooting his story, but we worked with what he had and, with my leaving him alone, he did fine.

I cautioned him about using a commercially licensed song for his closing credits, and he pulled out a letter of permission he had obtained from the record company. (Not to quibble, but the music was probably owned by someone else, but the mechanical reproduction rights seemed to be in the clear, and this was, after all, a high school educational project.) The student’s name was (and remains) Vince Gilligan. He became an Executive Co-Producer  and sometime screenwriter of “The X-Files,” and is currently the creator and writer of “Breaking Bad” on AMC. I still have a copy of his early work: “Henaissance.” My name made the credits, by the way.  

One more. A 12 year-old listener contacted me about an idea he had for a radio program. He wanted to give advice to other kids his age, advice about relationships, school, and parents. I suspected that he had problems with all three, and that’s why he wanted air time. But after a couple of phone conversations and a face-to-face interview, we decided to give the idea a try. I invited him on our live Sunday night call-in program on WBBL/WLEE, though the stations had long since lost their youth audience to FM. Still, the teen promoted the show at his school, and since we had few listeners anyway, I figured four more sixth or seventh graders might bump up the ratings!

That first night it was clear that this was all a kind of game for his classmates. He had prompted one or two classmates to call in (a tactic fairly common, actually); the other two callers were clearly having some fun at his expense. This whole experiment was well-intentioned, but not one of my better decisions. We quickly ammended the format after the boy made a medical diagnosis of a local classmate. A rightly concerned parent called in to protest, and we dropped the “advice” columnist role, letting the young man review films, interview guests from the youth point of view (empowerment, you see), and offer occasional commentaries. It didn’t last long. That said, the experiment drew some media attention. A Richmond TV station was on hand to cover the boy’s debut, and the second time he did the show the local “PM Magazine” team was there to do a segment that was picked up nationally. “The nation’s youngest radio host,” they pretended.

Those were the days… long before youth could send cell phone videos to YouTube or edit video on home computers, or express themselves creatively (or not) through “social networking.” And long before people like me started writing public memoirs called blogs.

Odd Jobs

I’ve already mentioned one “Celebration Rock” radio program dubbed “It’s My Job.” Based on the Jimmy Buffett song, the program featured several hits and album cuts about what people do for a living, or, more to the point, how we are called (vocation) to use our gifts and abilities to serve God and one another. Some folks work at jobs where their best gifts are underemployed, to say the least. They might have an avocation that redeems their time, refreshes their spirit, and does some good for their neighbors. Others called themselves blessed, because they are paid to do what they enjoy doing and what they are good at.

As I get to know new people in a new neighborhood, conversations inevitably turn to what it is that we “do” or “did” (if one enjoys so-called retirement). I remember my Dad making us smile as he listed his many cars through the years. Some people can build an exhaustive list of pets. Me? I can list my jobs. (I use the term “job,” but in church work, one might better refer to calls, ministries, or even “positions.”) If my Dad were to list his places of employment, the list would be short, as was the case for most members of the “greatest generation.” He worked for a major corporation, and post-retirement, he ran two small businesses. (And there was World War II…) If I were to list the geographic places I was in ministry, those settings would equal my Dad’s jobs: three. But, I sure moved around from one position description to another in those three places.

Just for the record (and not because you might really be interested in this), here is a list of my odd jobs. And please note: this is not my resumé; I won’t be applying for anything anymore. 

Upon ordination in 1969, I was called to be a media ministry specialist, but only part-time, since funding was limited. My other part-time job was to be the youth director at a sometimes controversial neighborhood drop-in center for teenagers. That youth thing lasted only a year, because I was invited to become Director of the Audio-Visual center at the seminary from which I had graduated. That lasted a year. I went back to radio ministry and producing “Celebration Rock” full time for a couple of years.

While in that position, I was asked to add a very part-time “stated supply” pastorate at a small suburban church. That three-month appointment turned into a year. When Presbytery funding for media was reduced, the Presbytery executive’s solution was to create a new position that would be more easily funded: Youth Ministry Specialist. Half-time. Within two years, I traded that job for a part-time position at a local urban church. I would be their Minister for Youth and Media. All the while, I continued to produce “Celebration Rock” as well as the other radio programs I’ve previously mentioned in this blog. Part-time.

At some point in all this, I spent a year on the payroll of the state council of churches as their cable TV and video specialist. I can honestly say that that was the biggest failure of my life’s work and ministry. I was overly optimistic about how to produce cable and video programs with no budget. I was a poor administrator, and not at all a self-starter in that position. And, I’m told, there were some unfortunate political issues at the council that didn’t help. I took their money. They got little more than good intentions. A year there, best forgotten.

Far more helpful to the church was my position as creator of the Video Education Center at the denomination’s Presbyterian School of Christian Education (PSCE). Part-time, at first. The school and I had a vision for how the emerging video technologies might 1) create video programs to strengthen the educational life of congregations; 2) teach our M.A. candidates the theory and practice of video in the local church; 3) extend the educational reach of the school beyond the local campus, through distance learning and continuing education; and 4) serve the church by providing professional video services at very low cost. (Related to #4, PSCE Video produced several significant video programs for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, including “Talking About Tough Issues in the Church” and “People of Faith and the Arms Race.”)

While at PSCE, there was a need for someone to teach the Youth Ministry course. I did that for two years, my PSCE position having become full time eventually (though I had the school’s permission and encouragement to continue my radio ministry through “Celebration Rock,” WRVA’s “Sunday Morning” program, and “The Spirit of Jazz”).

Then I was called to pastoral ministry at a local congregation, the church where my family and I had been active for many years. The PSCE Video Center became a half-time position, and my other half-time was committed to being the Associate Pastor for Liturgy and Congregational Care at the Bon Air Presbyterian Church. It was and continues to be a superb example of a faithful church with a social conscience.

[To balance the scales a bit with the state council of churches, as part of my continuing PSCE Video work, I was able to help the council with a significant video project, “Justice and Mercy: The Virginia Corrections Quiz.” It was designed to raise awareness about alternatives to incarceration, rehabilitation and recidivism, prison chaplaincy, and racial injustice. We took our cameras into state prison facilities, interviewed state corrections employees and church leaders. It was an ambitious project and helped redeem my previous failed ministry at the council. I hope.]

A significant vocational move finally took me away from Richmond. Funding for media ministry was becoming more difficult, but I was also feeling a stronger pull toward pastoral ministry, thanks to my satisfying work at the Bon Air Church. My wife and I had celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, and a number of transitions were taking place around us. We decided that we would open ourselves to a new call to a new place and whatever ministry God had in store for us. I was called be pastor of a small church in Vermont, and we remained there for nine years. A new call led us to New York State where I served as pastor of a somewhat larger congregation for 5½ years. Then as sure as the call to service, came the call to retire.

It was interesting to me that after leaving Richmond and radio, it took only about six months to completely lose track of the contemporary rock music scene. I chuckled to myself (since no one else was around) when I read the term “old school hip hop” in yesterday’s edition of USA Today. Hip hop has an old school already? Who knew? I must have missed Retro Rap too? Doesn’t matter to me anymore. I just hope that some people of faith are still out there interpreting the media-mediated culture that mixes and matches the times of playing and praying where we find meaning in our lives.

That was the nature of my many odd jobs through the years of my ministry. And to be sure, it was the central focus of “Celebration Rock,” using the threads of our mostly secular culture to weave a garment of faith according to a divine design I heard in scripture, music, and imagination.

Back in the High Life Again

I just read that Steve Winwood has a new CD out. That article prompted a fond remembrance of an album I showcased on “Celebration Rock” in 1986: “Back in the High Life Again.” When my radio program was in its early years, Winwood had played with the “super group” Blind Faith, and I spent the better part of an hour featuring that L.P. and adding my rarely-necessary, but sometimes enlightening commentary. I couldn’t help myself. After all, the songs included “In the Presence of the Lord” and “Sea of Joy.” Many years later when the 1986 Winwood “High Life” album was released, I bought a copy and wasn’t disappointed.

For one thing, the song titles were intriguing. Generally, when I chose music for “Celebration Rock” it was often the result of hearing one song on the radio, and thinking about how I might use that particular cut in some way. I’d find the album in a record store (remember those?), and glance at the rest of the titles listed on the cover sleeve. If I didn’t see some additional potential for a CR program, I’d just buy the single that had originally caught my attention. I didn’t have the budget to buy albums just to get one song.

But that Winwood album included several promising titles beyond the title cut “Back in the High Life Again.” “Higher Love.” “The Finer Things.” “Wake Me Up on Judgment Day.” “Take It As It Comes.”  In those days, I could only guess at the potential of an album for “Celebration Rock,” because lyrics weren’t usually evident until you bought the record and found the inner sleeve. And even then, some lyrics weren’t printed out and you had to listen, carefully, to discern the poetry of sung lines. (Did he sing, “I love the sky?” or, “I love this guy?”) It’s too late to make this long story short, but I bought the album, took it back to the studio and listened and wrote, and found a really good program in the process, a show I still enjoy hearing today.

Here is a linear excerpt from that 1986 CR show. Well into the program (page 5 of the handwritten legal pad script), I played Blind Faith’s “In the Presence of the Lord,” and then Winwood’s “Freedom Overspill.” I back-talked the cut this way (and then led into the next…)

Joe Walsh on slide guitar; Randy Brecker on trumpet, among the personnel on “Freedom Overspill” by Steve Winwood. I’ve got to believe there’s a person and a story behind those lyrics… The line that I want to focus on is one I’m yanking from its context, but it still deserves comment. The line is, “Who cares? Who knows what’s true?”

Sounds like a critic’s commentary on a Congressional hearing, or on conflicting reports on the latest revelations about electronic evangelists. Or, maybe confusion about the Contras…freedom fighters or terrorists?  Who knows what’s true?  It’s an issue of trust. Who do we believe? After listening to both sides (or many sides), if we still don’t know who to trust, we could just throw up our arms and say, ‘Who cares?’

I have this feeling that those most likely to say, “Who cares?”  really do care, very deeply, and either just don’t want to confess their confusion…or are so frustrated that it’s easier to back away and plead utter neutrality. But here’s the thing: even when confronted by conflicting stories, uncertain evidence, or facts we just can’t accept, we must still care… One of the most supportive and loving things we can say to another person is, “I might not understand, but I do care.” Maybe that’s one meaning of “higher love,” the kind that leads us “back in the high life again.”  (Then obviously there comes the title cut, after which the script continues…)

“Back in the High Life Again.”  Is it a song of recovery? Healing? Or, falling back into old ways better left behind for good?  Do you think this is the story of one who overcame some personal demon and who finds himself back in the swing of things, renewed, restored, reborn? Or, one who dropped out temporarily and now returns to face the high life once again, ready to do battle with temptation…or worse?

What is the “high life”?  And where is the “bright side of town”?  This is a song of celebration: “All the eyes that watched us once will smile and take us in. And we’ll drink and dance with one hand free and have the world so easily.” The music sounds like a Jewish or Greek folk dance, and I can imagine the dancer with arms held high, moving to the music without a care in the world. (Maybe there’s new meaning to the words, “I don’t care!” Let’s dance!)

I guess that all things considered, I’ll join the celebration, and assume it’s the low life that he’s left behind…and, as Jesus said, there’s  much rejoicing in heaven over one who was lost and is now found!

________________

Later in the program, I played “The Finer Things” and followed it with “Wake Me Up on Judgment Day,” and then commented on the record producer’s arrangement of the cuts on the album: There’s an interesting arrangement of the material on this Steve Winwood L.P. With a CD player, we could re-arrange the order of the songs to fit our own plan. We could start off with all the more negative songs of lament and despair, and then move toward songs of hope. I don’t always track the songs on “Celebration Rock” in the order they ‘appear’ on the album. But maybe we should trust the original producer in this case. We move from being back in the high life, and celebrate the finer things, with upbeat words such as “the finer things keep shining through the way my soul gets lost in you. The finer things I feel in me, the golden dance life could be…”

But then, just as in real life, we head for a fall. In the midst of the party, we become troubled. All’s going so well, until…something collapses… a friend becomes distant… a promise is broken… or we suddenly find ourselves at odds with… ourselves! In the song called “Wake Me Up on Judgment Day” Steve Winwood sings, “Give me a life where nothing fails.” If love and life fail, I’d rather just sleep. Sorry, but we’re back to facing valleys and mountains again. Presence and absence. Beginnings and new beginnings. Winwood’s advice–or plea– is, “Say a prayer for the stranger. Listen to the stranger.” The stranger of the song lurks inside us all at one time, or at any time. The stranger is the one who doesn’t believe, when we’ve been raised to believe. He’s the one who fails when we’ve been conditioned to winning. She’s the one who wakes from dreams too easily.

Perhaps the prayer should be that familiar sentence, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Here’s the next cut on the album which reflects the ambiguity of human life: “Split Decision.”

One final comment that came from that 1986 Winwood special: I found it interesting that the lyric of “Split Decision” begins in the 3rd person, safely pointing at “him.” Then the poetry shifts to the 1st person, “I,” admitting perhaps some ambiguity involving the self. And then the 1st person becomes plural–we–and we discover that we share the song’s dilemma. We must admit that we walk a very fine line winning or losing, succeeding or failing, finding joy or sadness, with life itself always a spilt decision. And yet (there’s always the “yet”), by the grace of God the rough edges are smoothed out, the losses redeemed, and the offenses forgiven. And we are back in the new life again, “the golden dance life can be.”